Political and Strategic Changes in the Mediterranean

Abstract

The paper elaborates on the geostrategic significance of the Mediterranean and the Mediterranean Sea in the past, as a precondition for consideration of current and future events in this macro-region. The author firstly considers the manifestation of the power, influence and interests of the great powers in the Mediterranean through a historical and spatial perspective. The paper analyses political and economic changes in the Mediterranean through the theoretical and practical approach of great powers`powers`navies engagement. The author points out that the geopolitical and geostrategic importance of the Mediterranean will further increase in the future, as a result of constant regional and global aspirations to increase the political and economic dynamics of this region. The growing competition between the United States and China will have a direct impact on the Mediterranean. The author concludes that the Mediterranean will remain a "testing polygon" for the United States, China and Russia, and a region in which political and economic processes and strategic changes in the world could be witnessed most obviously. THE MEDITERRANEAN THROUGH HISTORY The great French historian Fernand Braudel (1902-1985), who studied the history of the Mediterranean, claimed that the Mediterranean Sea was part of the largest landmass in the world. He stated in a brilliant essayist style that the Mediterranean was a kind of planet, where goods and people have been moving since ancient times. Braudel also argued that it was on these three connected continents that people found a great stage for their history and that the crucial events took place there. (Brodel 2007, 33-34). For several centuries the UDC 327::911.3(262)